


The Finish Line

by staning_dan



Series: The Other Side [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staning_dan/pseuds/staning_dan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's about time that everyone met up on the other side.</p><p>(a collection of extras from 'Open Your Eyes' and 'Eyes Open')</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Levi's First Day (Part 1)

::LEVI ACKERMAN::

 

To be honest, it’s sad that I feel the need to say this. But some people think I do it for inexplicable reasons, so I’m going to say it.  
  
I really do love teaching.  
  
It’s true, it’s no hoax, I don’t have any ulterior motives or anything. It’s just something that I love doing. Passing on knowledge to others, and getting paid for it.  
  
The only thing that I love more than teaching is art, the freedom of being able to create something beautiful with the use of simple objects and colours. I’ve practised many styles over my years of studying, learning and teaching… and I can’t seem to choose just one style or art to have as my own. I practise them all, and use them all.   
  
When I married Hanji, I made a promise to her. Obviously the main one… that I would be there, to have and to hold… blah blah romance blah blah. But there was also the promise that I would fill our house with the colours of the rainbow, in hundreds of forms and in all of their beauty.   
  
The days after our marriage were filled with painting, decorating and styling… and gradually we fell into a pattern. She would sit down and practice the piano and cello, whilst I set up my easel and painted. It was simple, and liveable. Eventually people started coming over to our house when they were tired and stressed, simply to bask the conformability of our life. Erwin and Petra practically live with us, Erwin choosing to leave his busy apartment to mark his papers in our studio, and Petra choosing to practice music with Hanji instead of being alone. It was the simple daily life that we all deserved… we were all familiar with the Trost University grounds and the life forms that came with it.  
  
And on that subject, I need to bring up my first art class with the trio.  
  
Upon entering the room, I was greeted with 20 or so faces, and they all seemed slightly shocked. The door did slam, but it wasn’t as hard as I could have done. Everyone was quiet, apart from two brats up near the back. They were talking like they hadn’t even realised that I had entered the room.  
  
I walked over to my table, and sat down my briefcase. I noticed lead marks on the table, and growled. Looks like I was going to have some cleaning to do. That’s the only letdown with getting a new classroom. You are forced to clean up the previous teachers mess. And art teachers have a history with uncleanliness.  
  
I looked back up at my class, and noticed that the old married couple were still chatting away about this or that. I left it, and did the first test. It was one of my favourites, always seeming to work its way into the kids’ heads that I was not to be messed with.  
  
I started staring each other the students’ eyes, noting which ones were going to be trouble. I had been teaching for almost a decade now, and I had learnt to tell which students were going to be a pain to deal with. Two boys and a girl up back gave me the vibe, and I knew that I was going to have to work on them. I focused my glare for significantly longer on the middle kid, a boy with dark brown hair and green eyes. He was shaking and sweating, so I knew I did a good job.  
  
The girl to the right of him was smirking, my glare not affecting her at all, and the last guy seemed to think that this was hilarious. He stayed stoic despite my stare, but seemed to laugh at his friends’ reaction. These three were going to be a piece of work.  
  
I cleared my throat, hoping to get the attention of the boy and girl who were still talking, but they still didn’t stop. I shook my head, and scoffed. “Do they ever shut up?”  
  
Nobody answered me, and the pair continued talking. Disgusting. I reached into my briefcase, picking out a paintbrush. I aimed and fired, the paintbrush flying between their noses, causing them to stop talking straight away.  
  
“ _Thank you._ I am Professor Levi, and I will be teaching you art for the rest of this god-awful year.” I focused my stare on the guy with the green eyes again, and I watched as he shivered. “You will enjoy it whether you like it or not.” The boy went completely red, and started breathing hard. Desired reaction achieved.  
  
I assigned the students to fill out a sheet telling me about them, their hobbies, what type of art they are most interested in, and any other information that I was going to need to know to get through this year. I had the reports back in 15 minutes, and from there I put on a film about sketching still objects and tips. It was my turn to study.  
  
The reports were simple to read through, and gradually I started to learn their names. The pair of brats that were talking at the start of the lesson were apparently Hannah and Franz, and they both specialised in watercolour. The only other people whom I was interesting in were the trio up back. Their names were Ymir, Eren and Jean. Their sheets told me more about them than even my stare could.  
  
Full Name: Ymir Sama  
High-school: Trost  
Art speciality: Contemporary  
Awards (regarding art): Basically every reward you could imagine  
Hobbies: Movies, Halo, making out, partying  
  
  
Full Name: Eren Jaeger  
High-school: Trost High School  
Art speciality: Preferably sketch, but I can learn more, sir.  
Awards (regarding art): None yet, sir.  
Hobbies: Completing homework, studying, practising drawing.  
  
  
Full Name: Jean Kirschtein (pronounced Jshan)  
High-school: Trost High  
Art speciality: Sketch  
Awards (regarding art): Few certificates in high school  
Hobbies: Gaming, internet  
  
It was easy to tell from the reports that Ymir was going to be snobby, Eren was going to listen to my every command, and Jean was going to be don’t care-ish. I would take care of that soon enough though.


	2. Levi's First Day (Part 2)

::LEVI ACKERMAN::

 

“How did your class go?”

I walked into the staff room holding all of the papers that the students had handed in, and instantly walked up to the coffee machine. I knew that once I saw the second floor of my classroom, I was going to need the energy. Hanji and Petra were sitting down at the table, already holding their coffee cups. There was a cup already made for me, my name written on the side.

“It was awful. I’ve got an old married couple that’s constantly talking, despite the fact that I was forced to throw a paintbrush at them at the start of the class, and a trio up back that looks as if they’re going to cause me trouble.” I picked the first three papers from the top of the pile, and slip them over to Hanji for her to read over. Once she had finished, she turned back to me.

“Eren doesn’t seem too bad. He seems to really respect you actually.” Hanji always trusted her students to be respectful of her authority, and she hadn’t had a troublesome student in years. She was smiling again, so I grabbed my coffee and went to kiss her forehead, trying my best to not act like an old fart that got mad at everyone. “Why do you think he respects you so much?”

“Might have something to do with the initiation process.” I sighed, and took a seat beside Hanji, setting down my coffee. I took a sip, and instantly cringed. Scalding.

“You didn’t stare at them, did you?” Petra was looking up, worried. She handed me back the papers, and sighed. “You know that that scares them.”

“It’s a process, a ritual.” I blew on my coffee, and smirked when I saw their terrified faces. “It needs to be done.”

“Those poor children.”

“They need to know their place. Besides, you’re not going to have to clean up after your students. They pack their instruments away for themselves. I’m the one that’s going to have to scrub the paint of the goddamn floors.” I sighed, and sipped my coffee again. Better. “Besides, you have two teachers in the room, you both teach in the same class. I have to be a one man army.”

“You practically are Levi. You’re equal to at least 3 teachers. The students will understand not to mess with you soon enough.” Hanji stood up, and drowned the rest of her coffee. Petra soon followed. “I need to get back to my class. Good luck, and don’t scare the kids too much.” She walked over to me, kissing me quickly. “Love you.”

She walked out of the room, leaving me to pick up my papers and finish the rest of my coffee. This next part of the lesson was going to be interesting. It was time to see what my students were really made of.

 

\----------

 

When I walked back into the classroom, I saw most of my students bickering or on their phones. The trio up the back was laughing at Jean, who was leaned over his phone. He looked up, and saw me closing the door. He shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans, and then the class started making their way up to the next floor.

It was disgusting. Paint was everywhere, and the aprons were in a pile. I had so much work to do. “Today you are allowed to paint whatever you want, but I will be judging your potential. This will not go towards your mark. You may start. You are welcome to use any of the supplies on the wall. Go.”

The class instantly went for the paints and canvases, whilst I headed straight for the window looking into the next classroom. Hanji and Petra’s class was steadily flooding in, and their class seemed to instantly start setting up and getting to their practice. One day I would tame my class like that.

I saw a smudge on the glass, and instantly cleaned it off with an old rag. Surveying the classroom, I noticed that it wasn’t the only thing I was going to have to clean. The easels were all crooked and in an uneven circle, the paints weren’t organised correctly, and the aprons. The aprons.

The classroom looked like literal shit.

I sighed, and decided to go and aid my class in choosing their canvases and paints. Almost everyone had already chosen, and was sitting down in front of their easel getting started on their base sketch. Meanwhile, Jean and Eren were still choosing.

“You okay dude?” I watched closely as Jean approached Eren, who was standing in front of the paper and looking extremely troubled.

“I can’t decide what to draw on. I want something big and sturdy but-” Dipshit. I walked over, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him towards the huge amount of canvases that we had to offer.

“Eren, look at all these big-ass canvases. Just choose one.”

He ended up picking the A3 canvas, and Jean was soon to follow. Now that all of my students were busy painting whatever they wanted, I was free to get to what was really important. Cleaning the goddamn paint splotches off the wall.

I spent about 10 minutes simply walking around the perimeter of the classroom, wiping off every single dot of paint I could see on the walls. Thankfully they were tile, which mean that they just wiped off, and I wouldn’t have to completely repaint the room. It made life a lot easier for me.

Typically there are supposed to be cleaners that went around and did this job for me, but they were shit at it. They eventually gave up on cleaning the art and drama rooms, and of course those were the two classes that I taught.

I didn’t plan on teaching Drama, but out main teacher is away on leave, due to having a baby. They decided that I was best for the job, for some stupid ass reason. I’ve been doing the job for two working months now, so I’m getting better at it. The students also think that I know what I’m doing, which I find sufficiently laughable. I don’t know when I’m going to be able to go back to just being an art teacher, but I don’t mind the double income. Makes life easier for both me and Hanji, especially when we’re thinking about the future.

I finally finished rubbing all the paint off the tiles around the room, so I decided to check on my classes progress. Hannah and Franz had chosen to do immaculate watercolour portraits of each other, and to be honest, upon viewing their artwork I was amazed. They had talent. I kept walking around the class room, looking at people’s drawings of the things around them, some ungodly creature, simple sketches of fruit, and then I came to the trio’s.

Ymir was flicking away with a paintbrush, going above and beyond with her contemporary art. It wasn’t anything realistic, it wasn’t even an object or figure… it wasn’t possible to explain the intricacy and ambiguity of it. Eren on the other hand appeared to be sketching something like a family portrait, one of the people was obviously him, and there was another boy and a girl. They all looked about the same age, with their arms wrapped around each other. I walked to the next easel, Jean’s, and observed his canvas.

He was drawing a very realistic sketch of a familiar face that I couldn’t quite put a name to. He continuously looked up at the roof, as if remembering something, and then he’d go ahead and add whatever detail to the project. What really got me about his art was how careful he was with it. He was so concentrated, and completely focused. He didn’t even notice me.

It wasn’t until my first Drama class that I saw who he was drawing. Something told me that the boy with the freckles was important to Jean, I just couldn’t work out why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter uploaded to this fic is going to be explaining the events that occurred between Mikasa and Eren at Jinae Hotel from chapter 13 of 'Open Your Eyes' and 'Eyes Open'! :)


End file.
